5 Diet Keys You Need To Know And Use

Here are the five essential keys for maintaining a normal, healthy weight:

1. Proper Nutrition

2. Proper Rest

3. Proper Hydration

4. Proper Exercise

5. Proper Stress Level.

Nutrition is proper, if you are getting (a) needed calories, (b) limiting "empty" calories most typically found in sugars, (c) eating less per meal or snack and eating those smaller portions more often to help maintain energy levels, and (d) proper if you are avoiding eating at times when your body is simply craving needed hydration, especially water.

Rest needs vary for each individual, but proper rest occurs best in darkness which is sufficiently dark for the healthy pineal gland to produce adequate amounts of the natural antioxidant melatonin; rest periods should be long enough, generally 6-8 hours for adults and 9-11 hours for infants, children, and youth. Rest is more critical for the brain than for the body. Proper rest allows the healthy brain to organize and retain the experiences and acquired knowledge of the day, while providing the needed time for the body to recuperate.

Hydration also varies widely from individual to individual but is based in part on the level of one's physical activity, height, weight, Body Mass Index (commonly referred to simply as BMI), and the temperature and stresses of one's surroundings. The body being largely liquid (some estimate as much as 74% water,) maintaining the body's natural levels of liquid is key to energy, removal of toxins, and one's ability to think clearly and concentrate. A body not properly hydrated sends thirst signals which are often misinterpreted as hunger signals, though added calories are not an adequate substitute for proper hydration.

Exercise can be a natural part of the day's routine activities, or it can be added to those activities. People who spend much of their day sitting (in school, at work, even at home, etc.) will need the added activity to obtain sufficient exercise to maintain bone density, muscle strength, tight and healthy skin, and the body's systems for eliminating toxins and waste. while reducing the individual's risks of diabetes, cancer, heart and circulatory diseases. For healthy individuals, the daily intake of calories should closely match the daily using up of calories. Excess calories are stored as fat; too few calories limit the full functioning of the body which must draw the needed calories from its own stored fats or less-essential body systems.

Stress is the fifth important key to healthy weight management, though genetic, medical, and psychologiclal factors can also impact weight management and can call for professional medical evaluation and possible intervention. Unusual stress rapidly depletes the body's complex of the B vitamins which are involved in many of the body's known enzyme processes, including those essential to deriving needed nutrients from one's foods. The body also stores energy as fat in order to be prepared to cope with future stress, and it aids this process by craving and consuming extra calories. The only normal way to cope with this result of stress is to reduce one's stress factors. This can be done by being better prepared, more organized, and by incorporating time for yourself, quiet times, if you can, and hobbies, meditation, yoga, and other enjoyable exercise and activities.

Useful Tips

1. Be aware that sugars can provide quick energy, but that energy (even if sustained by more sugars) still leaves the body craving needed nutrients. Those needed nutrients generally come with their own calories. If sugars have met the day's need for calories, those extra calories from the good foods will be stored as fat for later use.

2. Proper hydration is easier when water and juices are more easily available, so put a source of such liquids within reach of the locations you most frequently pass, work, or relax at. Also, realize that consuming cool and cold liquids helps to burn calories as the body warms the cooler liquids internally to the average body temperature of 98.6 Fahrenheit.

3. Making a one week list of foods and beverages consumed, rest obtained, liquids you consume,, exercise, and stresses experienced, can help you and a professional see how "on track" you are toward lifelong healthy weight management, and suggest any helpful changes.

4. Any consulted professional, once the genetic, medical, and psychological variables have been taken into consideration, will likely determine how your BMI compares to your recommended BMI. Then they can chart a path with you which can add energy, peace, longer and happier life to those added quality years ahead.

5. Last of all: review this list from time to time and give yourself a grade for your achievements in reaching toward your goals. Doing so is "an open book quiz" and, while you at least keep tabs on your progress, no other person need know.

If it's worth doing (and it is!) just do it.

© 2012 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.